A Developmental History of Artificial Intelligence

About the Book

AI didn't start in 1956

Rather than beginning the story in 1943 or 1956, this work demonstrates that artificial intelligence emerged from the long convergence of independent traditions: symbolic representation, mathematics, logic, mechanical computation, neuroscience, and theological inquiry into intelligence, agency, and creation.

Drawing from 245 curated entries — ancient Near Eastern mathematics, Greek logic, Islamic algebra, medieval scholasticism, Renaissance automata, Enlightenment rationalism, Victorian engineering, early probability theory, and foundational neuroscience — the narrative is organized into seven eras, from cuneiform algorithms and Euclid's geometry to Babbage's Analytical Engine and the electrophysiological discoveries that made neural modeling possible.

The volume concludes in 1942 — the final year before McCulloch and Pitts unified these threads into the first mathematical model of a neuron, crystallizing AI as a scientific discipline.

For scholars, engineers, theologians, and historians: a comprehensive, citation-verified foundation.